What's up on our Brackettville farm?

It's nice in southwest Texas right now. The days are the perfect temperature, high 60's to low 70's. The nights stay above freezing, sometimes in the 50's. But we haven't seen precipitation in a long long time. It's like a desert here. It's dry and dusty. Everything is coated with dust. No, not dust. Powder!
Blog editor's note: It's 39 degrees and misty today (Tuesday, Jan. 27) with an expected low of 30 tonight.

The problem with no rain is no food for our animals. No rain means no grass, no clover, no legumes, no nothing. So when the cows or the goats see us coming, they chase after us. They assume we have bags and bags of feed with us. I never carry feed. I might have to start though. Being hounded by hungry goats must be something like being hounded by hungry paparazzi. They're relentless, aggressive, pushy, and rude.

Below: The goats had caught up with us and seemed ravenous.They were so riled up from the chase that a couple of them expressed their anxiety by butting heads. You can see them, near center, as their head-butting begins.

Below: The headbutting is really half-hearted. Just nervous energy really.

Below: The two quit their squabble quickly, more intent on food than proving superiority over each other. They both look over at me and one begins to bray. Hysterical.

Below: Can you believe the dust they've kicked up running towards us?

Below: Funny that just a few feet away from that rabble of goats and that dusty haze is this placid tank full of fresh water.

Below: We were walking along the creek when we spooked the cows as they were coming to drink. If we'd been in the car they'd have come running. Car+man=Food. Man Alone=Something to be suspicious of.

Below: how cute is this calf? I wanted to cuddle her!

Below: The guys had this bit of camo cover draped over a deer blind which was, oddly, set into the back of an old Jeep/Mule thing. It had an interesting swirling pattern to it, I couldn't resist swirling it a tiny bit more in Photoshop

Above: I don't know if it's the lack of food or what, but lots of mommas seem to be abandoning babies. All the goats are dropping kids right now. Three have come home with us so far, only two have survived. They're so terribly cute. Nasty, filthy, dumb as dirt, but cute cute cute. I'd rather their mothers kept them. Taking care of baby goats is a real pain.

Goat Trix Pix

A young goat has two missions in life. One is to get to the food first, at any cost, and eat all of said food before anybody else does. A young goat's other mission is to always be higher than all the other goats and when that isn't possible, to be at least sitting on or near whatever might be different in the environment--be it an old tire, a tree stump, a body (live or otherwise) or the barest hump in the surrounding field. Today I took the flattened cardboard boxes that we'd set out as shelter for the goats on cold nights (they'd flattened each one in their attempts to fulfill their life missions to be highest) and laid them out on top of a dolly and against a tree stump just to keep the goats occupied while I shot them--otherwise they are too busy trying to climb me or to nibble on my camera strap for me to shoot them. Here is a little montage of their antics on the carboard. I have to say, the cardboard was a big hit with them after snack time today. The only other time they're this happy is when they're sucking down a warm Coke bottle full of Land-o-Lakes lamb meal replacer.

Click image to enlarge.



















The middle one above is my favorite. It's not easy to snap a levitating goat.


Joy! The mulberry tree has started to bud out with fruit! I love fresh mulberries. I did a pathetic job of shooting the mulberry tree last year, see them on the last page here, and hope to get some better shots of those small but beautiful berries this year. And, oh yum, I can't wait to eat the berries! Ripe warm berries right off the tree is heaven. We have a freeze predicted early next week. I'd be grateful for it, but will be very sad if the berries all freeze before they can mature.

These images and their larger counterparts are here.

Update: The freeze seems to have done considerable damage to the budding mulberries. They are pathetic this year.

Stalked by the deadly African Boer Goat who was cleverly camouflaged behind the tall Serengeti grasses. It's a wonder I wasn't killed

Baby goats are about the cutest thing on the planet. They're insanely playful. They want to know what everything is. They always want to be in or on whatever is nearest them. If there's a tire, they're in it or on it. If there's a rock big enough to stand on, they stand on it. If there is one bump in their immediate vicinity higher than the other bumps around them, they'll get on that bump and they'll stand there triumphantly until all the other goats notice.


They'll suckle anything they can get their mouths on, including your fingers if you don't watch where you allow them to hang. They give you kisses, suckle your ears, and chase each other around like little maniacs. They'll leap into the air for no reason at all about every four step when they are running. I can't prove it because I don't have a video camera, but I'm 99% sure that they skip.




They're so cute it hurts your eyes. You pick one up and you totally forget that it's covered in its own feces. The cuteness far outweighs the filth.


They have incredible personalities that make them so loveable that even when they've eaten the potted ficus you inherited from your late mother (the only plant of hers you hadn't quite killed yet) and even when they've nibbled away the last of your herb garden, you still find yourself making goo goo noises and baby talk as you give in and let them have a nosh on your shoelaces.


This wee baby goat spied me and headed my way. But not directly, no. He's a stalker, this one. He came at me using that little tuft of dead grass as cover.

Surely she can't see me! We African Boer Goats know our stuff, we can hunt.... um... those big, tall, feed sack bearing, two legged things like no one else can!





I shall encompass her doom! Muah ha ha ha!


I shot this little baby several times but not all the shots came out very well. For one, it was "hiding" behind dead grasses that were totally blowing my shot and for two, I used the flash on several shots and they came out looking kind of crappy.

Coming Soon To A Blogger Near You

Clovenfield

Hands down, my favorite shot of the day!

Spent a couple of hours with hubby while he fed goats and I took photo after photo after photo. I'm working on them now. There will be goats, sheep, mules, horses, and cattle.

No goats were harmed in the shooting of this blog entry. We did eat a cow, however.

No, we weren't torturing this little sweetie. She'd gotten out of the pens and was seperated from her mother. I think she'd been stuck out there for a while. We got mom out of the fence, she'd gotten stuck trying to get to her baby, and then hubby caught the baby to put her back in the pens but I made him hold her for a minute first so I could take a few shots.

When a goat screams for it's mother it sounds like it's being impaled on a spike. It's horrible! But once they feel safe again they're as happy as can be.

My day in Clovenfield.